Well, I've come down off the mountain.
No shots fired I am sad to report. Passed on eight cows and watched a spike for a while opening morning. Glassed a couple very decent bulls that evening much too far to chase however. Monday found me in several inches of snow, backed into a pine trying to stay dry.
My best encounter was in that pine, painted the crosshairs on a cow at 15 yds but caught movement in my other eye. The reptile brain screamed OOOH SHINEY! The gun swung onto a twenty inch long spike
. Well the reptile brain was satisfied, swinging back the cow finally caught me and blew out. Oh well, " Bird in the hand vs. spike in the bush" whatever.
Tuesday afternoon got set up in a hot park where our party killed three bulls.
Listened to three or four bulls bugleing for the better part of three hours. This is pretty rare during rifle season and I felt blessed just to listen in on the conversation. Had a couple cows come into the park as well as a huge bodied elk who for all appearences had no head. He milled around for about five minutes turning just enough to reveal all of himself (based on size) but no antlers to verify a legal animal.
In the end a great hunt. Five of our party took elk so that was a plenty of meat split six ways. Was up till 0300 boning out, wrapping and cleaning up the kitchen this morning. I'm getting to old for this stuff. I was so sore I considered sleeping on the couch down stairs to avoid another climb.
